Aerobic exercise is a popular form of exercise that improves one's cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure and providing other benefits to the human body. Aerobic exercise generally involves low intensity physical exertion over a long duration of time. Typically, the human body can adequately supply enough oxygen to meet the body's demands at the intensity levels involved with aerobic exercise. Popular forms of aerobic exercise include running, jogging, swimming, cycling, among others. In contrast, anaerobic exercise often involves high intensity exercises over a short duration of time. Popular forms of anaerobic exercise include strength training and short distance running.
Many choose to perform aerobic exercises indoors, such as in a gym or their home. Often, a user will use an aerobic exercise machine to have an aerobic workout indoors. One such type of aerobic exercise machine is a treadmill, which is a machine that has a running deck attached to a frame. The running deck can support the weight of a person using the machine. The running deck incorporates a conveyor belt that is driven by a motor. A user can run or walk in place on the conveyor belt by running or walking at the conveyor belt's speed. The speed and other operations of the treadmill are generally controlled through a control module that is also attached to the frame and within a convenient reach of the user. The control module can include a display, buttons for increasing or decreasing a speed of the conveyor belt, controls for adjusting a tilt angle of the running deck, or other controls. Other popular exercise machines that allow a user to perform aerobic exercises indoors include elliptical machines, rowing machines, stepper machines, and stationary bikes to name a few.
One type of treadmill is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,291,096 issued to Helen Ho. In this reference, an amphibious foldable treadmill includes a main frame having at least a wheel rotatably mounted on a base of the main frame to be rolled on a ground floor, a tread belt device pivotally secured to the main frame and unfolded from the main frame to be laid on the floor for treading operation, and a hand rail device pivotally secured to the main frame and pivotally connected with the tread belt device. Upon folding of the hand rail device and the tread belt device to the main frame, the treadmill can be folded for convenient handling, moving, and launching. Other types of treadmills are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,942,788 issued to Shen-Yi Wu and U.S. Pat. No. 7,540,829 issued to Ming Nan Chen. All of these references are herein incorporated by reference for all that they disclose.